Under the county \u201creconsideration\u201d policy, professional librarians must review any title that a county resident objects to; under the state \u201cprurient interest\u201d regulation, all public libraries must certify that no morbidly sexual materials are available to young readers in the children or teen sections \u2014 or else risk losing state funds.<\/p>\n
The motion to move the books passed after three library board members \u2014 supported by four citizens citing Biblical values \u2014 sided with state Sen. Rex Rice, a Pickens Republican who made a guest appearance at the meeting holding a list of the 10 \u201cprurient\u201d books.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would request that you look at these books very closely,\u201d Rice said.<\/p>\n
When asked if he had read the books, Rice said he had not.<\/p>\n
The request to move the books was not on the library board\u2019s agenda, and a list of the books in question was not available to the public on the night of the vote. Board members used an agenda item to certify compliance with the state proviso to justify a vote to move the books.<\/p>\n
One of Rice\u2019s supporters, Johnelle Raines, used the meeting\u2019s public comments to pray for the board.<\/p>\n
\u201cHelp them, O Lord, to plan for a better future that is aligned with your purpose, one that protects the innocent minds of minors from harmful ideas and surround them with the Holy Spirit’s wise counsel,\u201d Raines said.<\/p>\n
Another attendee, Peter Greenberger, said he was shocked that \u201cintelligent adults\u201d would continue debating whether books with \u201cgraphic descriptions of sexual acts\u201d should be accessible to children.<\/p>\n
But six citizens \u2014 including two high school students \u2014 pushed back, arguing that the state proviso is overly vague and that book collections should represent a broad cross-section of the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy parents don’t care if I read a book where teenagers drink alcohol,\u201d said Mae Anderson, a member of Students Against Book Banning. \u201cThey know that after years of being warned against underage drinking, one book isn’t going to convince me. I am more than what I read.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under the county \u201creconsideration\u201d policy, professional librarians must review any title that a county resident objects to; under…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":113521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-113520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114960339131787032","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}